are we going to avoid the fiscal cliff by the first of the year or not? >> i hope so. if you look at the final positions last monday of both the president and speaker boehner, they were this close, they were this close to a solution. the president was about $200 billion higher on revenues, speaker boehner $200 billion higher on spending cuts. out of a $4 trillion budget, that doesn't seem insurmountable. so i hope they would keep talking. my one bit of advice to speaker boehner is this -- you cannot pass a bill with just republicans. on a broad thing like this, you need both and he has put himself with plan b in sort of an impossible position. he has to get these hard right guys to go along with him. if he were to say and the president were to say we're going to pass a bill with a majority of democrats and majority of democrats in the house and senate we could get a mainstream bill. i know he's worried about his speakership but what i found in my 37 years as a legislator, when you show leadership, when you show redirection and courage, even people who disagree with you